Hacked Off

So News International has apologised to various public figures for hacking their phones and is going to set up a compensation fund. I guess that makes all that law-breaking - which they first denied ever happened, then tried to say was just down to one 'rogue' reporter - OK, then? Of course, the fact that this follows the arrest of two News of The World hacks earlier this week is mere coincidence. Not that they're admitting to all of the phone hacking allegations - they still deny that they hacked Steve Coogan's phone, for instance. Perhaps they don't think he's a big enough star anymore, so it would demean them to be seen admitting to having spied on him. Whilst we know about all the celebrities and politicians whose phones they tapped (allegedly), what about the non-celebrities they could have hacked?

I mean, it seems obvious to me that they must surely have been monitoring the phone calls of some very senior police officers. How else can the Metropolitan Police's reluctance to take action over the growing number of allegations of phone tapping, be explained? Clearly, the journo's had gotten the goods on some top cops through tapping their phones, and were threatening to go public with their goat-sex ring - or whatever it was they stumbled upon - if they didn't co-operate. But did it stop with the police? What about the clergy? After all, I would have expected a bit of moral condemnation from them, but not a word. Could it be that the News of The World hackers had recordings of the Archbishop of Canterbury making sexist comments about women priests to one of his top Bishops? Perhaps joking that most female priests can't even tell the difference between an immaculate conception and a virgin birth? Hell, that would certainly undermine Rowan Williams' liberal credentials, wouldn't it?